Steve Jobs to Music Industry “DRM doesn’t Work”

In this post from Steve Jobs on Apple’s official site, the Apple CEO addresses the current DRM issue in a very surprising (to some at least) way.

Jobs makes clear, in the post why Apple has DRM on songs from iTunes, and why that DRM is staying with Apple (i.e. it ain’t getting licensed to other companies – no matter what Norway thinks)

From the Article:

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

Here, he also addresses and outlines 3 options for the future of DRM:

1 – Continue with the Current Course (in this section he also makes a strong case that iTunes isn’t now – nor will it ever – hinder a user from choosing another mp3 player)

3 – Abolish DRM all together – the later part of this post is one of the most important statements you will ever read on DRM.

And I Quote from Steve Jobs:

The simplest answer is because DRMs havenâ€™t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.

Did you read that RIAA? Are you listening Universal? The guy that is selling the most popular mp3 player in the world…and is in charge of the most popular digital music store in the world just said something you REALLY need to listen to…